John Litel was an American stage, screen, and television actor. From 1919 to 1936 he performed in several plays on Broadway. In 1929 he began appearing in films and was in over 200 movies throughout his career. Litel often played supporting roles such as hard-nosed cops and district attorneys. He appeared in many television series. John Litel's acting career concluded in 1967.
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John Regis Toomey (August 13, 1898 – October 12, 1991) was an American film and television actor.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, he was one of four children of Francis X. and Mary Ellen Toomey and attended Peabody High School. He initially pondered a law career, but acting won out and he established himself as a musical stage performer.
Educated in dramatics at the University of Pittsburgh, where he became a brother of Sigma Chi, Toomey began as a stock actor and eventually made it to Broadway. Toomey was a singer on stage until throat problems (acute laryngitis) while touring in Europe stopped that aspect of his career. In 1929, Toomey first began appearing in films. He initially started out as a leading man, but found more success as a character actor (sans his toupee).
Toomey appeared in over 180 films, including classics such as The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart. In 1956, he appeared as a judge, with Chuck Connors as "Andy", in the third episode, "The Nevada Nightingale", of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show. Toomey thereafter appeared in another anthology series too as the character "Harry" in the 1960 episode "The Doctor and the Redhead", with Dick Powell and Felicia Farr, of CBS's The DuPont Show with June Allyson. In the 1961–1962 television season, he appeared in a supporting role with George Nader in the syndicated crime drama Shannon about insurance investigators. From 1963–1966, Toomey was one of the stars of the ABC crime drama, Burke's Law, starring Gene Barry. He played Sergeant Les Hart, one of the detectives assisting the murder investigations of the millionaire police captain Amos Burke. He also guest-starred on dozens of television programs, including the "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" episode of Maverick.
In 1941, Toomey appeared in You're in the Army Now, in which he and Jane Wyman had the longest screen kiss in cinema history: 3 minutes and 5 seconds.
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Nella Walker (March 6, 1886 – March 22, 1971) was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and in her teens became half of the husband and wife vaudeville team "Mack and Walker", with her husband Wilbur Mack. By 1929 she had launched a film acting career, her first film role being in Tanned Legs alongside Sally Blane, Dorothy Revier, June Clyde, and Arthur Lake. She appeared in three films in 1929, and easily transitioned to "talking films", appearing in another four films in 1930, possibly making the smooth transition because she was never an established silent film actress.
In 1931 her film career took off, with her appearing in ten films that year, five of which were uncredited. Her marriage ended not long after her film career was on the rise, and from 1932-33 she appeared in fifteen films, only five of which were uncredited. In 1935, her career improved, and between that year and 1938 she had 23 film appearances. Her biggest film appearance during that period was in Young Dr. Kildare alongside Lionel Barrymore and Lew Ayres. Throughout the 1930s her career was strong, and, despite her never being a premier "star", she repeatedly had solid acting roles. She finished that decade strong in 1939 with nine film roles, only three of which were uncredited.
The 1940s mirrored her success of the previous decade in many ways, with her appearing in 37 films from 1940 to 1947. Now later in her career, and over 60 years of age, she slowed her career for a time, not having another role until 1950 when she appeared in Nancy Goes to Rio alongside Ann Sothern and Carmen Miranda. She appeared in another two films in 1952, then had her last film acting role in 1954, in the film Sabrina alongside Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn.
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Ian Wolfe (November 4, 1896 – January 23, 1992) was an American actor whose films date from 1934 to 1990. Until 1934, he worked as a theatre actor. Wolfe mostly found work as a character actor, appearing in over 270 films. He and his wife, Elizabeth, had two daughters.
Wolfe was also a veteran of World War I where he served as a medical sergeant in the National Army of the United States. His service number was 2371377.
Although American by birth and upbringing, Wolfe was often cast as an Englishman: his stage experience endowed him with precise diction resembling an upper-class British accent. A receding hairline and etched features at a relatively early age allowed him to play older men before he actually grew old. Wolfe found a niche as a soft-spoken learned man, and his over 250 roles included many attorneys, judges, butlers, ministers, professors, and doctors.
Wolfe's best-known role may have been in the 1946 movie Bedlam, in which he played a scientist confined to an asylum.
Wolfe wrote and self-published two books of poetry Forty-Four Scribbles and a Prayer: Lyrics and Ballads and Sixty Ballads and Lyrics In Search of Music.
Of note to science fiction fans, Ian Wolfe appeared in two episodes of the original Star Trek television series: "Bread and Circuses" (1968) as Septimus, and "All Our Yesterdays" (1969) as Mr. Atoz, and portrayed the wizard Traquil in the cult series Wizards and Warriors.
In 1982, Wolfe had a small recurring role on the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati as Hirsch, the sarcastic, irreverent butler to WKRP owner Lillian Carlson.
Wolfe, who worked until the last couple of years of his life, died January 23, 1992, at age 95, of natural causes. He was cremated.
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Charles Emmett Vogan was an American actor with almost 500 film appearances from 1934–54, making him, along with Bess Flowers, one of the most prolific film actors of all time.